Leiston is a small town in East Suffolk currently facing what many others in the east of England are experiencing – the loss of their last remaining bank branch. As in other places, Barclays is the last bank in the town to close. That’s something which could be seen in two ways – they were community-minded enough to stay while others closed, or by being the only bank in town they held a monopoly and new customers would go to them.
Leiston is vibrant with independent shops and cafés – the very places that rely on banking services. It’s also growing, with housing being built and the mixed blessing of Sizewell C on its doorstep. As I walk around the town, signs pleading with Barclays to remain are everywhere. I spoke to some of the traders and their customers.
Community concerns
Project40seven is a community hub with a café, a shop selling crafts by local people, and much more. Andy, a volunteer and director there, highlighted the problems of getting change, saying: “We can’t post £2 coins down the phone”.
Corinne at Platt’s Greengrocers was especially annoyed about the way Barclay’s decision came out of the blue, with no consultation. She felt it was discrimination, a point backed up by a customer who has involuntary hand movements. For him, trying to enter a password is having to delete more digits than he enters. Another customer, Jackie, said “don’t get me started …”, feeling the lack of a bank put people’s wellbeing at risk.
Rosie’s Coffee Lounge is a new venture that has found a niche in the market for bagels. A customer there, Joanne, is from nearby Saxmundham who says she felt the banks were ‘profits before people’. Francis and Frances, the owners of Rosie’s, use the HSBC in Saxmundham, but are wondering how long it will be before that too closes.
Francis had a suggestion: why don’t the banks get together and split a building between them? This sounds like a good solution, and in the course of research, I discovered something like this is already happening.
Banking hubs and the future of financial services
The Post Office has set up Banking Hubs where representatives from a range of banks can be seen on particular days. There are two already open in the region, in Rochford, Essex and Watton, Norfolk and six more are planned. One of those in the pipeline stood out: Hatfield, with a population of over 40,000, apparently no longer has a bank at all.
But what if a town’s Post Office does not have its own premises but is located inside another shop? In Leiston, this is inside Coopers, a local hardware chain. Where might a Banking Hub go there?
The banks did well out of the COVID lockdowns, as hygiene concerns meant it was sensible to use contactless card payments, with commission charged on every transaction. But now cash is back and small businesses are keen for people to use it to help minimise their overheads.
There is a lengthy example doing the rounds on social media about the value of cash to a community, but to summarise:
If I pay £50 in cash to local businesses, and those traders in turn pay cash for goods and services, it doesn’t matter how many transactions there are, that £50 stays in the local economy. But each time we use a card, the trader pays a transaction fee. If the traders I pay that £50 to with a card only use the money left after they’ve paid the transaction fee, they have less to spend, and so on with every card purchase. Eventually that £50 has evaporated from the local economy into the banks’ coffers. It seems to me the banks are laughing all the way to … well … themselves.
Sue Thompson is a local author who writes poems as well as prose. She is planning a book of rants, here’s one:
The Plight of the Bankless They've closed the last bank in my village Now how will I draw out my cash? Those nice clinking coins I can use every day To pay for my sausage and mash? Now my nearest bank's in Lowestoft The bus won't take me there Life for an oldie on her own Is getting hard to bear. I'm left behind, a throwback To those days of comfort fled. My neighbour does my shopping now I might as well be dead. I wish they'd bring my bank back I need a friendly face To count my little pile of coins And say "Good morning Grace". So think before you close the banks Of those you leave behind. Computers may be clever But computers can't be kind.
